


i get mean when i'm nervous like a bad dog

by fakenewsies (bigsleepsuperhighway)



Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Angst, Fake Newsies, Hurt/Comfort, Immortality, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Thanatophobia, Trauma Discussion, Well I Guess Maybe, Whump, death anxiety, do ppl still say that. anyway who cares, points at albert. somebody PLEASE give this stupid bitch a self preservation instinct, points at finch. somebody PLEASE give this sad bitch a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:47:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24693268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigsleepsuperhighway/pseuds/fakenewsies
Summary: Just ill-fated. A dowsing rod for trouble, someone called him once. That little boy's cursed—no family to speak of 'cause he killed them all. That little boy with the ribs that show through and the feet too big for him to be any sort of runner; it was his doing. Product of misfortune. Bad luck's baby.
Relationships: Albert DaSilva/Finch (Newsies)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14





	i get mean when i'm nervous like a bad dog

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamonhunters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamonhunters/gifts).



> FAKE NEWSIES AU (gta!verse)
> 
> i was listening to 'cop car' by mitski and thinkin abt what i was gonna do 4 my writing trade w rayray n thought NOW THIS IS SOMETHIN!!!!
> 
> hope u like it dude love u lots <3333
> 
> c the ending notes 4 tws

Here are some things Finch remembers.

Telltale sounds of a job gone bad: ear-splitting sirens surrounding the warehouse, bullets pinging pieces off the columns they're hiding behind, dust flying up to choke the air. Shouts of LSPD itching to bleed them out onto the sheet-metal floor, squad cars, blue and red light.

It had been just the two of them. Botched weapons deal; they'd find out later the cops bought somebody for a tip, but they were totally alone.  _ Davey Jacobs of Plans B through Z hadn't gotten ahead of all this? _ Frustration, wired anger. A gun all out of bullets. Two boys all out of options.

And Albert. Bleeding steadily from a bullet wound on his thigh but still thrumming with energy, the world-class backwater Southern-charm grin on his face as long and hard as a hot day.  _ Shark-like, _ Finch remembers thinking fervently, his hands fumbling with his empty gun. Skin in his teeth, his jeans soaked with blood and salt water.

Some other things: the cops walking up real slow, guns drawn like they knew they were finished,  _ drop your weapons come out with your hands up don't do anything stupid. _ Finch knowing Albert  _ will _ do anything you tell him not to and  _ won't _ do anything by halves, not on a good day or a bad one.

Somehow, he felt the grenade before he saw it.

(Albert never quite ran out of them. Not ever. Always had at least one,  _ one contingency plan is all you need.) _

Finch barely remembers Albert ripping the pin out with his crocodile teeth and spitting and then just holding the thing. It fit. Little fist-sized lethal weapon, hefting it in his palm. Maybe Finch screamed at him over the sirens.  _ What are you doing you fucking idiot throw it throw it, _ though the moments right before get less clear. Maybe he didn't. Just looked at the glint Albert got in his eyes when he knew they were cornered...

_ I  _ am _ dropping my weapon. _

Finch does, however, remember the cops edging in, too close for comfort, and then the world around him going hot and loud and painful for a split second, and then nothing at all.

Albert never did do anything by halves.

——

When they wake up a few thousand feet away 24 hours later, it's in a rut of dirty Blaine County desert with the nearest building a smear on the horizon, and Finch almost kills Albert again.  _ Almost _ hits him, grabs a rock or his empty gun or  _ something, _ just out of the purest residual animal fear. But he doesn't. Can't move his legs or his arms just yet, just stares at the cloudless green-sick sky. Can't  _ move. _

Albert gets up fine, though. Spits out dirt like the pin from earlier, cracks his neck and slaps the dust off the back of his legs, though it does jack shit for the old blood. "Well," he says cheerfully, patting his pockets for his burner.

Logically, Finch thinks numbly, they shouldn't have burners. They shouldn't be wearing clothes. They died in a fucking  _ explosion— _ not exactly the cleanest way to go, and all their things would've burned along with the rest of the cops Albert took with them. All those bodies, baking on the scuffed metal. Who would find them? Who would know they were there?

Finch turns over and retches.

Awful, this constricting pain, pulled out of him down his throat. At least his body's caught up with him and there's not nearly anything in his stomach to lose, so it just hurts. Mostly coughing. Albert, the jackass, is at his side instantly. "Hey, you're alright," he says reasonably, tugging Finch upward by the collar of his shirt so he doesn't choke. "Get it all out."

"Are you  _ stupid," _ Finch grinds out as soon as he can speak, panting. Wishing for some fucking  _ water, _ wash out the blood coating the inside of his mouth.

Albert's eyebrows go up. "Beg pardon?"

Beg pardon.

As if they didn't just die. As if Albert didn't just blow him up in the middle of a firefight, always the quintessential  _ shoot first and ask questions never, _ not even trying to live because it didn't matter if it killed him.

Finch wants to be sick again so maybe all this fear that keeps shaking him will come up, and the sun's so fucking bright, never learned a day in its life how to shut up and listen. His hand goes to his eyes. His head pounds out his name on a new gravestone.

This is the second time, he thinks. A thrill passing through him like he's on a wire. The very second time.

Albert, apparently the perfect gentleman, has seemed to pick up on the fact that he needs more help than just his hair held back. Lets him up with a firm hand on his forearm and tosses him another burner, for all his tact, and for a second, Finch wishes he could've stayed dead longer. Just to scare him a little, but then. Guilt, flowing through him like new blood. Instant regret. Remembers  _ mom dad sadie coney. _ Can't breathe.

"It's okay," Albert says, his stupid eyebrows set hard in the picture of concern. Strong country hands, rough and tumble on Finch's back. "Finch."

The desert is so  _ hot. _ Not even sand, just dirt and waste and weeds and all those plants that won't grow anywhere else. Finch tries to spit but his mouth is so empty that frustrated tears spill over his cheeks instead. Hot. Shame and failure and the worst thing that could never happen. "I  _ hated  _ it," Finch snaps. "I hated it. Why did you do that?"

Albert looks—hurt. Under the slur of his breath, coming too easy, too slow. "No other option," he replies carefully. Brushes the rough of his thumb under Finch's cheek in this clumsy sort of way. "We came back, didn't we?  _ Hey. _ We came back."

That's what he thinks this is about.

Is it? Is it about staying dead or staying alive?

Finch shuts his eyes, never hating Albert more than in this moment. Been everybody's lover boy his whole life, never an ounce of self-doubt.

Who starts it, Finch can't say. Won't say until later, but eventually, the slick line of Albert's mouth makes it to his. The hardest reassurance. Teeth and leftover grit between them, the rust-smell of old blood stinging sharp, and Finch  _ bites. _ Won't stop fucking crying, though, even when he uses his teeth, salt-stain on his jaw making him itch all the way up to his eyebrows.

"We're alive," Albert insists lowly. Right up against his mouth. Breath too hot. "We made it out alive."

Albert DaSilva, Los Santos' very own Rock of Gibraltar.

Finch sobs. Feels like a stupid dog that doesn't know how to stop biting even when it's kicked, the kind that won't leave after you feed it. Takes care to dig his nails in hard at that wide expanse of shoulderblade just to see if the marks won't disappear.

——

When they have sex, it's sort of like Finch is watching Albert die a thousand times over.

_ That's _ fucked up to say, isn't it, fucked up that he can't take the morbidity out of anything, but that's the way it is. Can't help it: their vulnerabilities under the knife in exchange for taking a part of the other with them afterwards;  _ you show me yours and I'll show you mine. _

Which makes it—raw. Undercut with this severity. Cathartic, sometimes, enough to be awful but always good enough to bring him back.

Addiction always did run in the family.

——

(Even so, the marks stay.

Albert stays, too.)

——

It's an interesting situation. To say the least.

Started with Jack and Davey when they were both 19, got shot up in a convenience store robbery in their hometown. Point blank. No chance of surviving, and then hours later they woke up flopped over each other like landlocked fish in a rut off the highway nearby. Clothes covered in blood, shirts torn from bullet holes, but alive. And with each other to prove it.

They died. Died for  _ certain. _ And then they were back.

It couldn't have been easy to find others like them, but they managed: Crutchie, a car accident that nearly cut him in half; 21. Kid Blink, a rogue baseball when he was playing outfield; eight. Specs, Romeo, Hot Shot, Mush. A couple loose moral codes and a few too many nights of being short on cash later, they had a crew. Became bigger than what they'd ever been in their tiny New York hometown with more reach than they'd ever imagined; all it took was dying.

And they needed a sniper, didn't they.

Fate? Sure. Coincidence? Maybe. Whatever the case, once Finch left home and started making a name for himself as a decent shot, it was like puzzle pieces fitting together. Only a matter of waiting.

Sort of a double-edged sword, though, because since dying had become more of a shitty day job for the rest of them than, say, an _ actual threat, _ the whole crew talked about it a lot. A  _ lot, _ like—sharing conquests.

Albert's first time? Knife fight. He was fifteen.

It was one of the rare occasions at his shitty Georgia high school where he  _ wasn't _ the one who started it, but he says he wishes. Maybe he might've won if he had. But some dude fronted on him and then stabbed him eight times when Albert started swinging, and he bled out in his school parking lot waiting for an ambulance. Everyone surrounding him freaking out, the fat basketball coach trying to hold his fucking guts in...

He had to skip town, of course. Living breathing ghost story. Albert  _ loves _ telling it, gets this sort of smile on his face when he talks about it: sharp, a little wanton.  _ I like dying and I'm sure I can do it more than once. _

It didn't matter.

Finch has died twice, thanks to the shit Albert pulled in Blaine County. 'Course, everybody wants to know about the first one, whenever they all get together to drink themselves stupid and play chicken or fugitive or Russian roulette, just to mark another tally on the fucking spreadsheet.

But no matter how many times they ask, Finch won't tell them. Can't. It's like the words get stuck on the way out, a wine cork stoppering up his throat because it's just—

They're just all so  _ easy. _

Elmer, sweet, cautious Elmer who still looks both ways before crossing the street, seemingly can't go one job without biting it. Whether it's a knife in the back or a stray bullet from his own gun, he always comes back the next day sheepish and open-handed with the world's biggest smile. (At least 16 under his belt.)

Racetrack, with his tiny waist and his dimples and his fine, nervous hands.  _ Such _ a good thief, except when he gets caught by people who aren't fans of his work and gets those hands cut off; been tortured six ways to Sunday and still pouts when he doesn't get what he wants. (Twenty-two times. One for every year he's been alive; he's counted.)

It makes Finch's throat close up. More hornet's nest than boy: buzzing and angry and anticipating the hit before it comes.

——

(Albert talks in his sleep. Hearing it for the first time made Finch split open on the inside.)

——

Finch's mother died when he was born. Nothing too special, just hemorrhaged so badly afterwards they couldn't save her, which meant that by the nature of logical progression, his dad took to booze.

John Cortes was harmless when he drank: never hit Finch or his sister, never even got mean. Alcohol just made him wilty and despondent; Finch can't count on all his fingers and toes the number of times his dad got drunk and stood in his doorway at night just to watch him sleep. Reassuring himself the product of his wife's loss was still alive.

But Finch was always awake. Always felt the eyes on him, and stayed up until John left. He never said anything. 

John drank himself to death when Finch was 16. So he never found out, either.

Of course, Finch went by a different name, then. Took a new one when his sister hung herself and his best friend drowned and he finally realized that he was the common denominator in all of it. 

Just ill-fated. A dowsing rod for trouble, someone called him once. That little boy's cursed—no family to speak of 'cause he killed them all. That little boy with the ribs that show through and the feet too big for him to be any sort of runner; it was his doing. Product of misfortune. Bad luck's baby.

It's fitting that the only thing Finch can do right is shoot. Horribly fitting how he makes his living off other people's deaths while he can't even manage to secure his own.

——

Here are some things Finch remembers.

Jack yelling for Specs and Romeo, clipping his comm. Shots popping bright and hot against the suffocating black sky. Squinting through his scope at the people on the ground, bodies, counting over and over, getting a clear shot on  _ absolutely no one _ because it's too dark to see; folding up his bipod and sprinting across the roof, air freezing in his lungs. Fingers stiff and brittle.  _ Get a better shot; _ above a streetlamp looking down. Cold. Shouting, gunfire. And Albert, dark red hair and hoarse yelling, Finch's crosshairs on him,  _ just making sure _ before he even tries to help.

Panting, hands still steady. Killing one who aims his gun down Blink's throat, and then two more who are trying to find the source of the cover fire, whipping their heads around until Finch takes them off, and Jack howling into his comm to  _ move. _ Get out of there. Couldn't afford to lose anyone, didn't have  _ time— _

And then.

It hadn't been his bullet. When Albert's eyes had gone soft and blank and empty, his neck loose like a bird's. Finch didn't lay claim to the off-center wound in his forehead, but he saw who did. Hole in the guy's neck so he died choking, sputtering like one of Albert's cars after a hard race. Drowned in his own blood almost before he even hit the ground.

Above most of it, Finch remembers the panic. Shaky hands. Hot with guilt, then. The slick bubble of vomit threatening the back of his throat, the rest of the team calling for evac pounding in his ears. Tripping down the access ladder and sticking the landing in his ankles. Get there quick. The panic is easy to recall.

The moments after get a little fuzzier around the edges.

Fumbling with the knife at his belt, throwing it bloody in another's neck while the rest of the guys took off after Jack and them, and then it had just been him and the body, listening to the distant shouts echoing off the buildings and the faint police sirens that said the LSPD had finally caught wind. And then it was like he blinked and he was seeing Albert on the ground for the first time,  _ ginger freckles oil-slick black leather didn't even touch his gun, _ and the vomit came up a few feet away.

Shouldn't have happened like that. Shouldn't have been so slow, shouldn't have been so sick of the blood and the bone and even the fucking puke. Finch laughed breathlessly into the sick between his knees.

Jack crackled in his ear, told him the rendezvous point, but Finch didn't move for a long, long time.

——

(Something about being unlucky: you're a victim.

Something else about being unlucky: you have nobody to blame but yourself.)

——

When Albert shows up at Finch's apartment about a day later, he's smiling.

Smiling  _ hard, _ in that particular Albert way that shows the cruel downturn of his eyebrows, because no matter what expression he gets, he always looks a little bit angry. He seems loose enough, though. Still has asphalt in his hair.

"Hey," he says, wry, his mouth twitching. "Can I come in?"

Finch almost says no.  _ Almost. _ Is this close to just spitting on the ground and slamming the door in Albert's face, but he doesn't. Lets him walk in, feeling weirdly exposed.

"How's rescheduling?" Albert says softly, raising his eyebrows.

Immediately, Finch knows what he came for, right when he crosses the threshold and smiles. Albert's one of those people who wears his attraction on his sleeve: pointed gazes, sharp smiles, big open gestures. His eyes are so hot with promise it makes Finch feel small.

Still, Finch entertains him this possibility. Doesn't know how to want two opposites at once. "Shitty. We have to find some new contacts who won't shoot at us when we try to buy things from 'em, and Davey's havin' a conniption trying to set it all up."

"Shit," Albert winces. "How long are we delayed?"

Finch shrugs, crossing his arms. "I don't know. Upward of a month, I think Jack said. Might need to talk to Spot about reestablishing some of Brennan's boundaries, but..."

Albert has the grace to look ashamed of himself, this big embarrassed grin crossing his face. "Sorta my bad, ain't it."

Finch shrugs again. "Not really."

Bit of an awkward silence follows Finch's flat shutdown, where all they can hear is passing cars outside. Which makes  _ him _ want to wince, and Albert's eyebrows keep going up.

Finch frowns. "Just—would you get over here," he finally says roughly.

Albert tilts his head to one side, a suspicious curve to his mouth, but he does it anyway. Willing to pretend he doesn't see how fucking wired Finch is because that's the way they operate.

Finch feels smaller than ever at this realization. Still allows Albert's hands to wind in the front of his shirt, pull him in and kiss him up against the kitchen table.

They had seemingly both known it wasn't a good night for this, but it's confirmed as soon as their mouths connect. The tension coiled between Finch's shoulders is making his hands shake, but he kisses back anyway, hating how cold he feels, hating how much he wants to tear up the floorboards and hide beneath them. Soft mouth, tasting like blood and concrete. Finch is choking on it.

Not that Albert's not  _ good. _ Kisses with conviction, all of his teeth. All hands, too, good and strong and steady, under the hood of a car and everywhere else. Albert's plenty good. Just. Finch's stomach is twisting so hard he's fairly certain he couldn't get it up if he tried, and Albert's tongue in his mouth is just making it worse—

Damn him, though.  _ Damn _ him, privy to all of Finch's inner workings like the cars he spends his days fixing. Notices something's up before Finch can even try to relax.

"Alright, you're thinkin' too hard," Albert says cleanly, pulling away but not totally out of Finch's personal space. "What's up with you."

Finch almost misses the kissing. There'd be less talking, at the very least. "What?"

Albert sticks his tongue in his cheek and raises his eyebrows, which, yeah, alright. Fair. Finch sighs tightly, leans into it of his own accord when Albert's thumb tracks a soft line at his jaw.

"Hey. Look at me, c'mon."

Finch does it. Big dark eyes, hooded and transparent in their motivations; less heat in them, now. More solid ground to stand on.

"We don't have to," Albert reminds him. "You know, we can just..."

Of  _ course _ they don't have to, Finch thinks waspishly. Of course this is the  _ one time _ Albert won't just take what he wants from a fucking situation, even though he seems to do it everywhere else. On the road, with a gun in his hands. Blowing the two of them up along with five cops just because he  _ can, _ just because he  _ wants to. _

Albert's still giving him a look. Frustration curdles in Finch's stomach.

Finch is a sharpshooter. Far enough from the action that he can't lie for shit, can't hide what's going on in his head because that's not what they need him for. Could never do a job like Racetrack's, deceit as a second skin, and Albert sees right through Race anyway, so Lord only knows how obvious  _ he _ must be.

Albert waits. Finch watches him wait, stewing in his own ineptitude for a minute, and then the words come out before he can think about them anymore.

"You're a liability."

It's immediate.

_ Immediate. _

Albert's smart. Always thinks two steps ahead because you need that to be a good driver, so the light clicks on behind his eyes. "You—"

"I can't shoot when you're there," Finch blurts out in a rush, too far gone to stop talking. "You distract me, I can't  _ aim. _ I can't concentrate on my job because you  _ have _ to be safe. Always."

He has to take a break to calm himself down, but the breath he takes is shallow and trembly and he's tearing up before he even realizes it, tearing up  _ again, _ which he's about fucking tired of. Would just turn it all off, but it's something in Albert's face, his straight nose, the strong blunt of his jaw, that makes all the emotion rise to the surface.

(Dowsing rod. Draws the feeling right up through the blight no matter how hard Finch tries to keep it locked in the basement.)

"It makes me feel like I can't keep you safe." Finch peters off with this thought, his voice breaking hard and heavy. Tearing up his throat even with how small it is.. "I can't—keep you safe."

So this.

This is the culmination. The final admission of weakness, where he unpins the grenade and waits for it to go off.

"You don't  _ have _ to keep me safe," Albert replies, squinting. That hard Clint Eastwood squint you get from growing up with Westerns. "Hell, you don't have to keep anyone safe. We'll just come back.  _ I'll _ come back."

"But you don't  _ know _ that!" Finch explodes at him, and then he really does push, the push he's been holding on to since the beginning. Full two hands at the front of Albert's chest.

Comparatively, Finch is slighter, not as broad in the shoulders. Only needs to be big enough to steady a gun and fire it, but Albert's so surprised he staggers, and once the cork's spit out, Finch can't stop. "You don't  _ know _ that one day it won't all just—go away. You don't even keep count! You just trust in this  _ system _ that isolates you from everyone except us and you trust that you're gonna wake up in a day and have all your memories, or your  _ limbs,  _ or that you'll wake up at  _ all? _ How can you  _ do _ that?"

The silence rings in the air between them, Albert's eyes thin and Finch panting.

He's certain he didn't say  _ how can you do that to me. _

He's certain of it, but it feels like he did. Feels heavy, feels like  _ when did I get so tired, when did I get so involved. _

Not the nature of a sniper to get involved with anything. Coward's practice.

"What happened to you," Albert says flatly. Finally. And there's the tiniest bit of Southern inflection, and Finch has to shut his eyes because he  _ knows _ he's upsetting him, he knows it, but doesn't know how to open his jaw. "That you hate dyin' so much."

_ You owe him this. You owe him this. _ "My mom. When I was born," Finch replies, so quiet he's certain Albert won't hear him. "My dad. My sister. My best friend..." Everyone he's ever known. His whole family, and then everyone afterwards.

Albert's hands clench like one of his spanners, iron-hard and white-knuckled but more nervous than anything. His face looks like a broken window. "And you do this job  _ why." _

Finch doesn't say anything. Can't, not then.

Because what is he supposed to say?

A life for a life isn't retribution. It isn't anything, it's just another useless cycle to get trapped in. Wasp-bitter, the kind of bitter that doesn't stop stinging until it's dead.

He should've known he would've been the one to throw the balance.

So Finch just bites his lip so hard he tastes blood; at least this time it's his own. Just says, "I'm sorry." Just keeps saying it until Albert's face patches itself up, just keeps saying it until he forgets why he said it in the first place. Until he stops talking. Until he forgets how to speak at all.

Albert doesn't leave him, though. Doesn't leave him and doesn't leave him and keeps on not leaving him, even sleeps, which they don't do often. Good to have Albert in his bed. Would've been cold and stagnant otherwise, probably wouldn't have been able to sleep with the light off, even. Good to have Albert there.

All through the night, Finch listens to him breathe, just to commit it to memory for the next time it stops.

——

Here are some things Finch remembers.

Remembers being 18 and jumping off the cliff's edge in the forest. Steep drop, least a hundred and fifty feet, rocks below him coming up. So  _ fast. _ Remembers closing his eyes at the impact, or maybe he hadn't. Maybe he'd died so quickly it hadn't mattered.

Remembers  _ who will miss me. _ Remembers  _ who will know I'm gone. _ Remembers the cruellest joke of waking up in the woods a mile off, not even injured but just shaking so hard his teeth chattered for weeks after.

That was when he learned how to shoot. Stopped shaking when he looked down his scope, another person's life in his hands, and that was that. Thought  _ what's the point of a curse if you don't spread it. _ A life's barely a life if you're too far away to see it clearly, so surely there's no harm in taking it.

Always  _ taking, _ always selfish. With every luxury he's allowed.

——

(Somewhere along the line, they figure out that this is the closest to love either of them will ever get.

Somewhere along the line, they figure out that Albert is the one thing in Finch's life that can kill him.

Neither of them say it. But they both figure it out.)

**Author's Note:**

> **tw/cw: violence, mild gore, nausea/vomiting, mentions of alcoholism, suicide, sex as a coping mechanism**
> 
> here we are!!! the creative process on this one was WILD tbh i was blocked 4 literally a week n then pounded out 4k words in A Very Short Window so!!!! yall BETTER comment if u enjoyed this or else ill come to ur house n pour milk in ur shoes
> 
> and hey if ur reading this go follow [me](https://fakenewsies.tumblr.com/) and [rayray](https://dreamonhunters.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!!! <333>/p>


End file.
